


Sailing the Crest

by Blake



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: But they figure it out, Canon, Car Sex, Except when he doesn't, First Time, Floor Sex, Friends to Lovers, Homosexual Illya, Illya has patience, M/M, Napoleon has no idea what he's doing, Napoleon taking Illya on dates, Napoleon tries, Period-Typical Homophobia, Question Mark Napoleon, Season 3, Top Illya, Topping from the Bottom, Unrequited Love, angsty sex, self-pitying Illya
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:43:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8243290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: Napoleon takes Illya out on a date.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, I can't, just can't, read the TV show in any other way than Illya being homosexual and hung up on Napoleon for the first two seasons while Napoelon's a bit of a homophobic jerk in return because of internalized homophobia, until season three when they start banging and then they start talking and Napoleon gets really into being queer, and then he wants to freaking marry Illya because he's an obsessive Capricorn lover and Illya is still kinda resentful of being dragged through so much in the beginning...
> 
> This is my first story in this fandom, with that head canon in mind. I have two chapters written and a few others planned, (as well as other stories,) but I REALLY want to know how you all like this before I bother writing more!
> 
> So please let me know what you think. If you want to read the next chapter, (which is from Napoleon's POV,) please tell me! Thanks so much for reading!

Napoleon kisses him, and Illya really should have seen this coming.

It’s just a peck on the cheek in greeting, perhaps nothing unusual if they were two Frenchmen in France. But they are a Russian and an American, and they are in Little Italy, in a restaurant Illya has often heard Napoleon praise: exquisite wine selection, music loud enough to promote the intimacy of leaning close just to hold a conversation, and an unspoken arrangement of sorts in which Napoleon ignores the chef’s more Sicilian connections and the chef brings out the best wine and makes a show of being surprised that Napoleon has found himself a girl to dine with for once.

Illya knows all of Napoleon’s tricks, knows the up-inside of his sleeve with the familiarity of what was first assumed to be a co-conspirator, then later appreciated as a safe confidante once Napoleon figured out that Illya would never offer any competition in the divvying up of female attention.

He should have known that when Napoleon asked him to meet at this restaurant, it was going to end up—or start out—with Napoleon doing something awkward. And awkward is exactly what this kiss is. Napoleon’s lips are a soft, dry brushstroke at the corner of Illya’s mouth, and Illya inhales sharply in surprise, breathing in the scent of aftershave and skin that makes Illya’s stomach drop and his brow knit in longing, despite himself. His inconvenient longing for Napoleon has been part of him for so many years now it feels part of his wiring, though letting go of the longing the moment it occurs is just as much part of his hardware.

Illya’s exhale takes the longing along with it, but fails to dissipate the awkwardness as Napoleon steps back, his hands lingering uncertainly at the tops of Illya’s arms. Illya shoots him an amused glance. One corner of Napoleon’s mouth quirks sideways, and Illya knows he is biting the inside of his cheek as he often does in his less confident moments.

“Funny,” Illya starts, pulling free to turn to the table and help himself to the chair across from the one Napoleon was seated in a minute ago, “I always assumed you were the fashionably late type.”

Napoleon cocks his head and flicks his fingers in the air before shrugging. Sliding into his chair with a minor fuss of rearranging fabric, he announces, “Tony should be by soon with the Fiano.”

The music is loud, so Illya leans over the table to be heard. “Is that a red?” he asks, clasping his hands and resting his forearms, elbows and all, on the tablecloth.

Meeting Illya’s gaze almost guiltily, Napoleons replies, “Ah, no.” The expression on his face is the one he makes when Mr. Waverly asks him a question he doesn’t know the answer to, or when he calls a girl by the wrong name, or when his mother calls _him_ the day _after_ her birthday.

Illya enjoys the expression privately. He flattens his hands on the table, amused by the way Napoleon watches the movement as though he has never seen a man’s hands before. “Don’t worry, Napoleon,” Illya says pityingly. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Dinner continues with many anecdotes about Oklahoma and a thankfully small number of Napoleon’s cumbersome attempts at making Illya feel comfortable. Illya tries to be patient—has _been_ patient for weeks now—but he has waited through this before. It’s a certain stage in his friendships with heterosexual males. It occurs after they finish being painfully unsettled by their new knowledge of Illya’s preferences, and before they become able to spend time around Illya without giving it a second thought. It’s the transitory period of condescendingly assuming things of Illya that simply are not true: that he wants his attractiveness verbally validated by all men, that he wants to be looked at, that he wants his chair pulled out for him and his cheek kissed upon greeting, that he wants to hear his friends discuss the timeless ethical dilemma of whether Paul Newman is more attractive than Steve McQueen.

Each of the few times he has been through this before, it has never been quite so upsetting as this, however. He finds himself angered instead of bored, and frustrated rather than insulted. It isn’t that Napoleon is acting any worse, let alone differently, than Illya’s previous friends with whom he has been so open; it’s that in the case of those previous friends, Illya _didn’t want_ them to compliment his appearance, stare at him, kiss his cheek, or claim to be open to the idea of sleeping with a male movie star.

But with Napoleon, Illya can’t help hearing what he wants to hear, can’t help thinking _Napoleon likes fair-colored men best_ even as his reason—trained by consecutive years of physical attraction toward his partner that was over and over again proven to be one-sided—pops the hopeful bubble before it is even released to float free in his chest.

So as Napoleon brings up the subject of the latest film Peter O’Toole is starring in—discussing how very _charming_ he finds the actor’s features and how _compelling_ his eyes and suggesting to Illya that they should go see it together some time and he should wear that lovely blue sweater that cuts his figure so nicely—Illya scowls at his now empty plate, thinking that perhaps he shouldn’t have eaten so fast, because his stomach is twisting in knots.

“Napoleon,” Illya says, finding strength, as he always has, in saying the name, reducing the man down to four syllables over which he has power. “What’s this all about?” he asks, impatience dragging his voice down to make it sound more like a demand than a question.

“What’s the matter, you don’t like tiramisu?” Napoleon replies innocently. Illya wishes that Napoleon were intelligent enough that his innocence could clearly be identified as feigned or sincere at all times, but that is not the case. Flipping the dessert menu between his fingers, Napoleon meets Illya’s heavy sigh with direct eye contact. “Tell you what. Let’s stop and pick up some ice cream on the way to my apartment. You can pick the flavor. I know you like the ones they come up with just for the kids.”

“Says the man who can’t drink vodka unless it’s doused in fruit juice,” Illya fires back.

Napoleon sets down the menu and pulls out his wallet, shrugging. “A little sugar, a little spice…”

Illya smirks, feeling for a moment like things are back to the way they were. “Yes, it’s too bad you don’t have an appreciation for the salty things in life,” Illya yells over the volume of the music, waiting for Napoleon to fix his gaze on the nearest thing in high heels and retreat behind the wall of discomfort the way he used to, back when it was still fun to push him around by making him think of things he didn’t want to think about. Back when the joke _wasn’t_ on Illya.

Disappointingly, Napoleon flicks his eyes up from his wallet to cautiously study Illya’s face, as the wine-induced flush at his neck smudges further up his skin. In the past few weeks, Illya has learned that Napoleon’s obliviousness, disgust, and then obsession with distancing himself from the abnormal had all been superior to Napoleon’s open-mindedness, which has only resulted in _pity_. Hung up on a man who _would never_ isn’t so bad, in retrospect. But lovesick as a schoolgirl over a man who _might_ , but _doesn’t_? That joke is on Illya.

Illya retrieves his own wallet and throws some bills in Napoleon’s general direction without looking.

Together they walk all the way to Napoleon’s apartment, stopping for ice cream since it was so generously offered. Illya has a standing policy of taking whatever Napoleon offers him. This policy may have its origins in a sort of youthful desperation, but it has developed into something practical: Illya has no investment in preserving his romantic feelings for his partner. Perpetually broken hearts and emotional masochism were for poets, adolescents, and Americans with nothing else to define themselves by. If taking something that Napoleon offers—and ultimately retracts—hurts enough to replace Illya’s affection entirely with resentment, it won’t be any great loss.

Or perhaps in addition to being not a great loss, it would be a _relief_ to have one more thing to resent Napoleon for. Illya already resents him quite a lot. He resents Napoleon for his obliviousness, for his cruelty, for the embarrassing weakness of his insecurity, for every time he has teasingly flirted with Illya from within the safety of a girl’s arms, for every time he was tender one moment and guarded the next, and for the fact that Illya still finds him charming despite being able to see right through him, despite having studied him enough to know that there’s nothing objectively attractive in his plain features, his awkwardly bulbous chin, his soft figure. Perhaps accepting Napoleon’s proposal for a friendly dinner out, only to wait for hours and end up eating alone, will be the final brick in the wall of resentment being built around Illya’s heart. Perhaps taking Napoleon up on his offer of ice cream will result in the drugstore counter-girl taking Illya’s place in Napoleon’s evening plans, and Illya will breathe a sigh of relief as the last wave of his resilient affection breaks itself against his resentment, and disperses.

It is too warm in the building after walking briskly in the night outside, so as they wait for the elevator, Illya starts to shrug out of his jacket. Lightning-quick, Napoleon steps terribly close and pulls the jacket free of Illya’s arms, the way he does when Illya has a bruised rib or a shoulder wound. The smell of Napoleon’s tender proximity makes Illya’s heart clench, as always, with the remembered pain of bullets and broken bones and Napoleon’s insecure callousness.

But nothing is so bad as the light touch of his hand to the center of Illya’s back as the elevator slides open and Napoleon guides him to enter first. Illya’s eyes slide shut as he leans slightly into the careless pressure of that hand; it is the cruelest thing Napoleon could do.

Illya makes himself move, and as the elevator doors shut to show a smudged metallic reflection of his own coat tucked between Napoleon’s folded arms, he thinks of Napoleon’s cautious, inquisitive touch on the flayed skin of his back, weeks ago, in the prison cell that had seemed a luxury resort after a certain sadistic, THRUSH-appointed headmistress had deemed his flogging sufficient.

He has relived the moment over and over, in his mind. He can recall every detail: the drop of his stomach as Napoleon lifted his shirt; the humiliation of being inspected; the gentle stroke of Napoleon’s fingers; the sting as they dragged sweat across his wounds because Napoleon Solo doesn’t think about such details even when he is trying his hardest to be kind; the pity, the overwhelming _pity_ , as Napoleon touched him like something breakable; the hot shame of sudden arousal _despite_ all these things; the smell of the pillow he pressed his face into, holding himself entirely still, hoping pathetically to prolong the moment, to keep Napoleon’s pitying hands on him, to keep Napoleon’s pitying voice cooing into the air behind him.

Wrapped up in these memories are the equally vivid ones of each time he has brought himself to climax while thinking of these things. Illya is not one for fantasizing, and rarely imagined Napoleon in more than a vague way while engaged in anything sexual; but lately, on several occasions, halfway to finishing, his mind has been infiltrated by memories of Napoleon’s cool, pitying hands, of the breathless anticipation of Napoleon assessing his damage and deciding his fate, of Napoleon’s thumb brushing down his spine.

Illya doesn’t break his stare until the elevator opens and he can no longer see the reflection of his jacket in Napoleon’s pitying arms. He steps out into the hallway before Napoleon has the chance to guide him again with a hand beneath his shoulder blades.

Instead of the ice cream, they have more wine, a bottle of red something or other which Illya helps himself to from Napoleon’s collection. Napoleon crinkles his nose at Illya’s selection when he sees the label. The gesture serves as encouragement rather than the intended disapproval, because Illya doesn’t care whether it’s a wine that’s not suitable for after dinner or one that’s distressingly too expensive for Napoleon to want to waste it on Illya, but he does care about making Napoleon upset one way or the other.

With a habitual smirk, Illya props his feet up on Napoleon’s clean coffee table and sips loudly from his glass.

The dipping of the couch nearly makes him spill his second drink as Napoleon sits down next to him, saying, “Your cheeks get so pink.” Suddenly the backs of Napoleon’s cool, narrow fingers are brushing the skin just beneath Illya’s cheekbone. It’s a terribly presumptuous move, assuming that Illya’s general enjoyment of masculine touch entitles men to touch him however they like, even as a fawning auntie would touch her feverish favorite nephew. Illya has no right to complain about the presumption, however, as he bears this touch by providing as few indicators of discouragement as he has every other time; he stares at a spot on the ground, breathes carefully even breaths, and silently waits for it to end.

It does, eventually, end. Illya feels more deeply flushed than he was from the wine, and he leans forward to refill his glass to make up for it, bracing his elbows on his knees and spinning the stem of the glass in the space between.

In the warmth of his third serving, Illya finds the ambition to protest Napoleon’s presumptuous treatment of him. “As happy as I am, Napoleon, that your stomach no longer seizes up in terror of my proclivities, I do wish you could treat me like any other man—”

“Mm, but I can’t treat you like any other man,” Napoleon says in a certain level, yet melodic, tone of voice, cutting Illya off.

Suspicious of the warmth in Napoleon’s voice, Illya looks over his hunched right shoulder at Napoleon, only to find him leaning closer than necessary. Illya retreats to slouch with his back against the seat cushion and asks, warily, “Why is that?” He watches Napoleon press his mouth flat and tilt his head to the side, his usual pantomime of considering a response that’s already planned out. Illya breathes, and tries to unravel the confusion building up around him in the wake of Napoleon’s unrelenting invasion of his space.

Then Napoleon shifts, uncrossing his legs and twisting to rest his elbow on the back of the couch, near Illya’s head. “Because you still make my stomach seize up.”

Feeling the sting before understanding the meaning, Illya casts a wounded, cautious glance up into Napoleon’s earthy eyes, which are frustratingly the most inscrutable feature in his generally exaggerated face.

The next moment, Napoleon kisses him, and Illya really should have seen this coming.

Napoleon’s awful, counter-productive attempt at flirtation, the invitation back to the apartment, the light touches, the careful negotiation of space, the nice restaurant: this has been Napoleon’s aim from the beginning. This is Napoleon’s foolish, ill-advised, ineffective attempt at seducing him.

Illya is kissing him back before he even decides to start. As though from a great distance away, he feels his own lips soften under the taste of Napoleon’s breath, feels the press of Napoleon’s soft cheek against his nose, feels his own heart drop low into a hard, speeding rhythm. He does not feel thrilled, and he certainly does not feel relief. He does not feel as though he is finally getting something he has coveted for years.

Suddenly, Napoleon settles a hand gently upon Illya’s jaw while producing a soft, tangled sound in the back of this throat—a precisely choreographed combination that Illya has seen performed upon countless women—and in this moment, Illya is overwhelmed by an intense desire to send Napoleon reeling, make him slip up his own choreographed steps. He lets his eyes slide shut as Napoleon’s are, and surges forward into the heat of Napoleon’s mouth.

He slides his fingers around the cradle of Napoleon’s skull and holds him there, feeling with his thumb as the hinge of Napoleon’s jaw opens to allow Illya’s tongue past his teeth.

Illya’s chest feels as broken as a sob when he tastes the abrupt snag in Napoleon’s breath.

Illya bites, inhales, and tries to taste as much of Napoleon’s lips, tongue, teeth, as he can. Absurdly, he’s equally motivated by the desire to _prove himself_ as he is by the desire to experience the sensation of kissing Napoleon Solo. For years, Illya has had to patiently bear Napoleon’s bragging tales of his prowess with women, while any slight mention of his own sex life sent a visible shiver of discomfort up Napoleon’s spine. Illya knows all of Napoleon’s tricks, but Napoleon knows none of his, and the countless times Illya has thought to himself, _You don’t even know_ , are all assembling in this moment, driving him to show Napoleon just how clueless he has been, just how much he has been missing.

It feels somewhat more sad than victorious. Illya is too swept up in the feeling to care.

Blindly, he sets his wine glass down on the coffee table and brings his newly freed hand up to Napoleon’s neck, sliding his fingers down just under the back edge of his shirt’s collar. He flexes his hands slightly, relishing the delicious vulnerability of Napoleon’s flesh in his hands—caught between Illya’s palms, holding his jugular and his skull in place. It’s a tender position, one Illya could use to snap a man’s neck, and he’s intoxicated by using it to show Napoleon what kissing is supposed to feel like.

With a soft whine which he does nothing to stop from spilling into the mess of lips, Illya gets one knee up on the sofa, molds an upward curl into the neck between his palms, and has his way with Napoleon’s mouth.

The next time Illya opens his eyes, pulling back for a chaotic breath and looking down at the chaos in his hands, he realizes he is thoroughly drunk—if only off the shining smear of his spit on Napoleon’s parted, wine-red lips, and the hungry gape of his wide, lost pupils.

Before he has the chance to sober up, Illya lets go and strips his own torso bare, pulling his sweater over his head and dropping it to the floor. He reaches for Napoleon’s hands and plucks them from their useless hovering, and on the very next breath, he presses those manicured fingers tightly against his expanding ribcage.

Napoleon flattens his hands. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. Illya keeps Napoleon’s open gaze locked into his, watching with a note of bitterness for a flinch that hasn’t come. When Illya slides their joined hands slowly across his chest, dragging Napoleon’s touch upwards, it is with a strange, deep churning in his gut. He waits for Napoleon to pull away in distress at the flatness of Illya’s pectoral region, but it doesn’t happen, and Illya perversely feels something akin to disappointment. He bends to kiss Napoleon again, then pulls back to challenge, “Did you want to take me to bed, Napoleon?” in a tone of voice over which he has no control.

Napoleon is staring at Illya’s mouth, and so Illya half-consciously wets his lower lip with his tongue. The fingers at his chest tighten, claw-like. “I, ah, did offer to buy you dinner, first,” Napoleon replies, his voice dreamy and distracted.

Illya stands, and draws Napoleon up to him. “You can,” he bites out, while their bodies inch closer together, their hands lain naturally on one another’s shoulders. Illya’s throat is thick with desire for all the things he wants. From his slight height advantage, Napoleon leans down, going in for a kiss which Illya dodges. “But,” Illya says, before tripping Napoleon easily and knocking him directly onto his back. Before the breath that was knocked out of Napoleon on impact can return to him, Illya gets a knee digging into the hardwood floor on either side of Napoleon’s waist and folds over to place his lips just centimeters above Napoleon’s. “I prefer the floor.”

There is no protest as Illya begins to work his mouth down Napoleon’s neck, across his throat, tasting every pore he can reach. There is tension in the tendons beneath his tongue, however, and in the tentative hands alighting on his sides. Illya makes quick work of Napoleon’s tie, collar, and first several buttons, and tastes every exposed inch of his sternum, with no goal in mind but to taste.

“How Russian…of you,” Napoleon chokes out, the moment Illya pulls his shirt far enough to the side to lick across his nipple.

Startled, Illya lifts his head just enough to ask, “What?” because he has no idea to what Napoleon is referring. It occurs to him that Napoleon is very unused to being on the receiving end of such attentions, to have someone finding his skin beautiful and kissing across it, but none of these things have to do with Illya’s homeland.

Napoleon shudders under him, and Illya tilts to look up and meet his gaze. “To prefer the floor,” is what he says, his voice as shaky as his chest is, trembling under Illya’s chin.

And he looks so pathetic, lying there, so desperately trying to keep up, struggling to produce confidence where he has none, taking blind shots at being charming but only revealing his uncertainty instead.

It was so easy to take him down.

Suddenly Illya identifies the churning in his stomach. It is the hollow space carved out by, and typically reserved for, disgust—but instead of disgust, it is occupied and activated by _desire_ , so strongly that it almost doesn’t feel like disgust at all, but merely a confusing ache of complex, violent _want_.

In this moment, Illya realizes that following through on this is a very bad idea. They have already done enough to ensure that Napoleon will be seeking a severe amount of distance tomorrow morning, and Illya hasn’t even _begun_ to take him apart in earnest, hasn’t even _touched_ him. He should stop, before going any further with such complicated intentions.

But Napoleon seems to be filled with an equally messy cocktail of feelings because even though Illya can see that he is, in some way, _frightened_ , he also tastes like lust when he curls up to press his mouth into Illya’s once more, and he feels like something not-quite-contained when he spreads one hand across the back of Illya’s belt and pulls him down until their bodies are flush and hard and fitting together with sinful perfection.

A moment later, they gasp in unison. This is everything Illya wants.

Illya rolls onto his back, dragging Napoleon with him and sending the coffee table skidding with his knee. His spine presses into the ground but he moans at the sureness of its resistance. Without breaking the seal of their lips, Napoleon settles delicately, braced on all fours above him, and Illya slides his hands into the unbuttoned shirt to push it off one shoulder, then the other. Very obliging, Napoleon lets Illya free his arms and wrists from each sleeve, and then shoves his hands in Illya’s hair and sighs into Illya’s mouth.

Pressing his palms up the naked expanse of Napoleon’s back, Illya compels Napoleon to lower himself, until finally, Napoleon’s chest is warm and heady against his. Illya breathes into its pressure, his skin slipping against Napoleon’s faint sweat, his ribcage expanding under Napoleon’s bones.

He feels as though he is melting in the best way, as though Napoleon’s kisses and the weight of him are transforming Illya into something less solid and definitely not human. It’s not enough weight, though, and he grunts in annoyance when he realizes that even though their chests are touching, Napoleon is bracing his hips up at a respectful distance, the way he surely would above a blushing maiden who would be frightened by the demanding pressure of what Napoleon has to offer. It’s not as if Illya has never felt an erection before.

In fact, he desperately _wants_ to feel Napoleon, and he arches his hips up to find that heat before it even occurs to him that _Napoleon_ might be the one who is frightened, who is wary of the difference between his reaction to his own erection and another man’s.

And the thought is not at the forefront of Illya’s mind as he feels the thick, hard pressure of Napoleon’s cock, secure against the inner juncture of Illya’s thigh, which is sensitive even through two pairs of trousers. He rubs up into the pressure, his own cock aching and growing against the blissful tuck of Napoleon’s pelvis.

And if Napoleon goes still in panic, it is for a moment so brief Illya can barely sense it, as he is overwhelmed by the way Napoleon’s body lights up and shoves Illya’s hips smacking straight back down onto the floor with the insistent weight of his own. Napoleon rubs wantonly against him, and Illya can barely breathe for how good it feels, for how hungrily Napoleon’s lips work to swallow his exhalations.

He grabs one of Napoleon’s hands from his hair and drags it down his body, electricity coursing through his skin in the wake of that callused palm. He bends and twists and shoves until he gets Napoleon’s hand between his legs, curled and cupping the fabric and flesh of Illya’s ass. Illya moans, squeezing Napoleon’s hand hard enough that his flesh pulls apart a little bit, just enough to hint at being stretched open. He tucks their joined fingers between the floor and his tailbone, and trusts Napoleon to keep the heel of his hand pressing into the space just behind his testicles. Napoleon makes a choking sound against Illya’s lips.

Without much thought, Illya reaches for the arm that Napoleon is currently bracing himself on, and turns his face to draw Napoleon’s hand toward his mouth. Their balance is unstable for a moment, until Napoleon settles on his elbow and lets Illya take control of his second hand.

Illya wraps his mouth around Napoleon’s first two fingers and sucks them down, feeling like he’s starving for them. With his eyes shut in concentration, he swirls his tongue across them, and curls up to slide his lips all the way down past the knuckles and to Napoleon’s palm. With a groan, Napoleon curls his fingers at the edge of Illya’s throat, but it still doesn’t feel deep enough.

Feeling crazed, between the warm pressure massaging his ass and the not-quite-enough fill of his mouth, Illya hollows his cheeks around Napoleon’s fingers and slides off before driving them back in again. He starts a rhythm, choking himself and straining his neck until Napoleon says, “Fuck,” and his fingers spasm hard, pressing the back of Illya’s tongue into place.

It’s uncanny, hearing Napoleon use such an uncharacteristic word. As Illya pulls back, releasing Napoleon’s hand to gag and cough, he opens his eyes to look at Napoleon, and sees warm brown eyes gone cold with overwhelm.

"Do you want me to leave?” Illya asks abruptly on his next full breath. It’s the first thing he can think of. He must know. It’s natural. It’s self-defense, to make an effort to leave before being asked to leave. He breathes hard, knowing that at least Napoleon knows him well enough that his words won’t come across as passive-aggressive.

Napoleon’s brow crinkles, and he withdraws both hands from where Illya placed them and rests them on the floor once again. Cocking his head to the side in a puzzling way that Illya does not necessarily find comforting, Napoleon says, “What?” Half a breath later, “No.” He looks down into Illya’s eyes, searching. “No,” he repeats, sounding particularly confused.

His lips follow and drink up Illya’s heavy sigh. Illya watches, and realizes that he feels less heated than he did a minute ago, and he’s not even sure exactly what changed.

But when Napoleon lifts himself and rolls onto his side, Illya doesn’t take the opportunity to stand up and leave, despite being distantly aware that it would probably be the smart thing to do. Instead, he follows the soft warmth of Napoleon’s body and settles himself lengthwise against it, bringing his lips to Napoleon’s sternum. There, he mouths the name, _Napoleon_ , giving no voice to it, just tasting the skin against his teeth.

Together, they tumble so that Napoleon is on his back again, with Illya halfway on top of him and his knee between Napoleon’s thighs. So tentative, Napoleon’s hands come to delicately hold Illya’s head, and tangle in his hair. Illya feels absurdly on the brink of feeling wildly emotional at the gesture, as he buries his face in the skin over Napoleon’s ribcage, as he breathes in the human smell of his skin. Moisture gathers in his mouth, or maybe behind his eyelids.

Quiet and slow, Napoleon murmurs, “Just tell me—show me—what to do,” as his hand pets softly across the back of Illya’s head.

Illya bites down on the skin at his teeth, unable to constructively channel everything those words make him feel. The frustration—at Napoleon, for being so inexperienced, for assuming that Illya is willing to teach him new tricks to satisfy his curiosity, for being too cowardly to take the lead despite his insecurities. The desire—making Illya painfully hard against the front of his pants at the promise of Napoleon putting himself in Illya’s hands, open and ready for the taking. The disappointment—also at Napoleon, for being too not-in-love with Illya to know in his body exactly what to do—the way Illya knows in his body exactly what to do to Napoleon.

Illya ignores Napoleon’s request, and instead, does what he knows in his body to do.

Within moments, he has Napoleon’s thighs clenching beneath his forearms, Napoleon’s coarse black hair scraping his splayed, hungry palms, and Napoleon’s cock filling and twitching under his searching kisses.

As soon as he gets his lips wrapped wetly around Napoleon, sucking hard and working the marble-hard flesh down the length of his tongue and back up again, Illya shuts his eyes and barely hears the sounds Napoleon is making through the static ringing in his ears. It really isn’t fair, how good this feels. He fills his mouth, his throat, then empties it again, building a selfishly fast and sloppy rhythm. This is an act he enjoys in general. His enjoyment is only intensified when the other party is particularly responsive, twitching and leaking and yelping and arching beneath him. His enjoyment is only _further_ intensified when he is already helplessly, physically attracted to the other man beyond comprehension.

So altogether, he feels as though he may have never felt so good in the history of his life.

He uses every trick he knows to make Napoleon come undone under his touch, relentless as he would be on himself, relentless as though Napoleon’s release will be his own, relentless like rubbing himself down into the unforgiving hold of the chilled wooden floor.

As intrinsically as he would know when he himself is about to come, he can tell when Napoleon is close, and he presses his palm against Napoleon’s balls and strokes his thumb just behind them and fists tightly around Napoleon’s shaft to feel every second, every subtle movement of release. The first searing pulse hits the back of Illya’s tongue, and Illya moans hungrily around the second one, drinking in every sensory detail like any one of them could be his last.

He licks, and swallows, until there’s nothing left to swallow, and then he licks Napoleon clean, momentarily mourning the loss of Napoleon’s foreskin—another few centimeters of flesh Illya could have tasted, if it was there. He keeps his lips light across the slit, until Napoleon starts to shrink and pull away from him, oversensitive.

Then Illya is breathing heavy air all over Napoleon’s spent cock from inches above it, looking up at Napoleon’s flushed, vaguely upset face, and he can’t think of where to go from here.

Napoleon curls into a sitting position, pitching Illya back until he is on hands and knees. With neither a word nor more than two glances, Napoleon tucks himself back into his pants and fastens them, while disentangling himself from Illya’s limbs in order to twist and lean with his back against the nearby sofa. He makes a rough sort of face and touches his back, now that it is no longer digging into the floor. Illya watches this all very carefully, waiting for some clue of what to do or feel next.

Eventually, Napoleon turns his head, very calculatedly, to regard Illya. He wears a smile that falls short of confidence but not of warmth. “Why are you all the way over there?” Napoleon asks from two feet away, between still labored breaths. He sets his hand, curled palm downward, on the floorboard beside him, before patting the spot twice.

It seems an incredibly awkward gesture, but Illya follows it anyways. He sits down next to Napoleon, not quite relaxed as he props his knees up at a loose angle.

It’s only a moment before Napoleon is pressing close again, his face settling atop Illya’s shoulder, which rises as his chest fills with excited breath yet again.

“Ah, may I?” Napoleon asks. His face, Illya realizes, is so close to Illya’s neck in order to _hide_ , but the thought doesn’t make the touch any less riveting. Napoleon shoulders his way even closer, sharing some of his weight as he frees both hands to land lightly on Illya’s belt. Illya wonders if Napoleon notices the small wet spot just inches from his fingers.

Illya’s voice quakes on its way out, veined with uncertainty and desperation. “You don’t have to do…anything.” He doesn’t say it to give Napoleon the option to stop. He says it so that he will feel less foolish if Napoleon does stop. He holds his breath as Napoleon’s exhales onto his bare chest, as Napoleon’s fingers work open his belt.

“If that’s the way you approach these things,” Napoleon says, sounding oddly at ease, “it’s no wonder girls don’t call you back.”

They both go deadly still, the joke falling flat between them. As a rule, Illy really wishes Napoleon thought about his words before speaking. Sometimes, he wishes that he himself was the kind of person who could laugh about a joke about dating women made by a man who had just come in his mouth. For the hundredth time tonight, Illya wonders what it is that Napoleon wants, and then realizes that he doesn’t want to know, not yet.

The moment passes without laughter. Napoleon pulls down Illya’s straining zipper. “Get on with it, then,” Illya says, not sounding half as impatient or annoyed or humorous as he hoped he might. His words don’t seem to have any effect, anyways.

Napoleon uses both hands to pull him free of his boxers, making Illya moan pitifully at the warm, light touch. Illya straightens one leg out in front of them to offer better access. Napoleon uses the space to curl further in toward him.

Hating the breathless sounds he is already making, Illya watches attentively as Napoleon holds his cock in a loose fist with one hand and delicately explores the wetness at the tip with his other fingers. There’s no trusting his voice right now, so Illya gives up on having any control over what happens, and buries his face into the hair on the crown of Napoleon’s head.

Napoleon is blessedly quiet, despite the fact that he is clearly thinking a lot, observing what’s between his palms and experiencing reactions to it. But he says nothing, even as his fist stutters into a slow, dry rhythm.

It feels awfully good, especially when Illya drags in long inhales from Napoleon’s oily scalp, and when Napoleon licks his hand to lubricate his way just the slightest bit. And that there, the knowledge of Napoleon’s spit smeared over his cock, sears into Illya’s mind in a way he is sure will scar permanently.

Almost unconsciously, Illya grabs hold of Napoleon, curling inward to clutch at his neck with one hand and his spine with the other. He feels Napoleon’s free arm slide under his lower back so he can grab at Illya’s waist and fit him close. The embrace feels unsustainable, like a held breath. It burns in Illya’s veins.

The worst part of it all is that Napoleon doesn’t transform, the way Illya has felt men transform before: men who didn’t know that they wanted to touch other men, but who, the moment their hands touched him, began thrumming with tangible desire and a desperate awakening Illya could taste on their lips. Acute shame radiates from Illya’s realization that he hoped Napoleon would be one of those men. Some part of him has been hoping that for a long, long time.

The shame sidles intimately into Illya’s tight bloodstream, slipping alongside the oxygen depravation of Napoleon’s unstable hold, the hot running pleasure from his chaffing hand, and the filthy knowledge of Napoleon’s taste and scent, which Illya took and is keeping for himself, trapped in the watery hollow beneath his tongue and in his veins.

Illya begins to spurt against Napoleon’s wrist, and Napoleon hums out, “There you go,” pleased and encouraging and sounding for all the world like he’s murmuring to a baby who has just ceased its crying. Illya finishes quickly, with Napoleon’s hair catching between his teeth, with his heels digging into the ground.

A minute later, Napoleon moves in as though to kiss him. Illya jerks away before Napoleon can reach his mouth. In the awkward, silent space between their faces, Illya realizes how stupid his reaction was. Napoleon is surely familiar with his own flavor, and has surely kissed girls who had him on their tongues. Still, it seems different. “You wouldn’t like the taste,” Illya says, staring at the kitchen door.

He tilts his head just enough to watch Napoleon consider his implication. Solemnly, Napoleon nods, as though seeing the wisdom in Illya’s words. Illya’s throat aches with disappointment.

It’s so quiet in the apartment that Illya first begins putting his clothes back on just to fill the space with the sound of fabric rustling. It’s better than the thoughts that might run through his head if he stops. Once his belt is clinking, he realizes he’s standing almost completely dressed above Napoleon, who hasn’t moved a muscle, hasn’t said a word.

Once he’s tying his shoes, Napoleon speaks up. “Did you want to, ah, stay?”

Illya pauses, the absurdity of Napoleon’s timing striking him to stillness. Now, once Illya’s already dressed and moments away from being ready to walk out the door, once Napoleon is _safe_ from him even considering the offer, _now_ Napoleon asks. On top of that, he doesn’t even look Illya in the eye; he seems to be staring into space, lost in his own little— _so_ little—world of thought.

It all makes Illya so angry, he can’t bring himself to properly respond. “See you at eight tomorrow,” he says tersely, running his hand through his hair and over his face before heading for the door.

The worst part is that when he says it, Napoleon looks relieved.

Illya should have seen this coming, and he vows to have better foresight in the future. All foresight, and not hindsight. If Napoleon wants to pretend this mistake never happened, (and it’s pretty clear to Illya that that is the case,) then Illya can pretend it never happened, too.

“See you at eight,” is the last thing Illya hears before he shuts the door quietly behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illya is a Scorpio and Napoleon is a Capricorn. The rest is history.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who's still reading this! Sorry I left it for so very long. More to come!

“That's it. I need fried food, and I need it now,” Napoleon sighs. He was already stressed before Waverly’s call, but finding out that they had been tailing the wrong man for the past 72 hours pushed him past the breaking point. He swipes his keys off the coffee table and makes for the door.

“Shall we try that diner across the street?” Illya chimes in, making Napoleon turn in his tracks. He watches Illya twisting into his jacket, and tosses his keys idly in his hand.

“You’re, ah, joining me?” If Napoleon had the energy, he could kick himself for saying anything. Saying nothing seemed to work so much better for him, when it came to Illya in the past two weeks. Every time he tries to bring up what happened between them, or what he wants to happen between them, Illya aggressively brushes him off and takes several steps backward—either literally or figuratively, depending on the situation.

But Illya must be as exhausted as Napoleon is, because he merely tightens his mouth into his habitual bitter smile and finishes shrugging his jacket onto his shoulders. “I could eat at least three of those _Grand Slams_ you introduced me to.”

Pleased that, for once, Illya isn’t tense beyond recognition, Napoleon breaks into a tired, relieved smile. “You do realize it’s almost midnight?” He turns the knob of the hotel door and pries it open, still looking at Illya. “If you order breakfast, the waitress might take you for a foreigner.”

Illya spares him a single, darting glance before walking with purpose toward the door Napoleon is holding open. “What I do in the night is no one’s business,” he announces on his way into the hall.

Napoleon stands still for a moment, considering that. It seems that Illya is irritated with him after all. Irritated, but still joining him for dinner. Well, breakfast.

Shrugging to himself, Napoleon steps out the door and locks it behind him. He’ll take Illya’s irritated company over Illya’s irritated absence, every time.

He takes comfort, _pleasure_ , in Illya’s proximity, and if that isn’t at the root of all Napoleon’s problems right now, then he doesn’t know what is.

It started out as mere enjoyment of his partner’s company. Right off the bat, he found the man’s sense of humor entertaining; the dark edginess of his sharp tongue combined with the bright, youthful sparkle of his eyes to render him undeniably compelling. Once Napoleon discovered that those qualities were not merely products of Illya’s foreign upbringing and intellectualism, he began to take a soft sort of pride in his familiarity with Illya’s wit, which became a comfort in and of itself. Shortly thereafter, Napoleon developed a habit of trusting Illya with his life, making leaps based on the assumption that Illya would be there to catch him, and feeling a warm burst of relief in his chest every time Illya _was_ there to catch him. Just the sight of Illya made him smile.

The fact that Illya was a homosexual and the fact that he was infatuated with Napoleon had almost no inhibiting effect on the growth of Napoleon’s—there was no better word for it—affection. Even though Illya never told him these things in blunt language, Napoleon felt honored that Illya trusted him enough to let them shine through, to allude to them and allow Napoleon to put together the pieces. For a long time, too long, Napoleon took comfort in Illya’s intense focus on him, knowing that when they were apart, Illya was thinking of him, and when they were in a room together, Illya was watching his every move. The fact that Illya wasn’t scared off by the lack of reciprocity only made Napoleon respect him more, until the mere thought of Illya made him feel known, and safe.

His increasing affection for Illya didn’t seem odd or even complicated until a few months back, when he began realizing that he found comfort not only in Illya’s presence, cleverness, trust, and attention, but also in his _touch_.

He started catching himself reaching out to touch Illya more often than necessary. He clutched him by the shoulders. He held his face in both hands to check for injuries. He felt for bruised ribs before asking with words. He was touching Illya because he _wanted_ to.

Since Illya wanted to touch him, too, it should have been so simple.

But instead, here he is, watching his partner stuff his mouth full of pancakes in stubborn silence, not a step closer than he was two weeks ago to understanding what it meant that they had sex on Napoleon’s living room floor. He doesn’t know what to feel about the fact that Illya’s touch was one of the most astounding sexual experiences of his life, and he can’t even tell whether it stands out so much because he’d never gone so far with a man before or because it was just that _good_. He hasn’t been able to think about how inexperienced and clueless he felt once Illya was in his arms, hasn’t even been able to feel properly ashamed about that. He still doesn’t understand why Illya seemed angry at him the whole time and hardly seems to have cooled off since. Hell, he’s not even sure that Illya’s anger, or his own shameful inexperience, isn’t the element that made it so enjoyable.

In general, the whole thing scares him.

But if he wasn’t good at diving headfirst into situations that scare him, he wouldn’t be in this business.

Watching Illya try to wipe up the syrup on his plate using an already saturated forkful of pancake, Napoleon eases himself into a relaxed sense of fondness. It’s been two weeks of emotional tension and non-stop work, and the last thing he needs is to brood more. Everything else aside, the sight of Illya makes him smile. So he lets himself smile.

Illya pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth, looking up at Napoleon suspiciously. “What are you smiling about?” he asks, head bent, eyes their guarded icy blue.

Tapping his own fork against the smile in question, Napoleon breathes for a thoughtless moment before replying, “It’s been a long week. Smiling is more pleasurable than frowning.”

Something else catches Illya’s gaze, which flicks to the side. “So, I hear, are waitresses,” Illya says tersely. A moment later, their waitress comes to the table to refill their coffees, and Illya casts Napoleon a loaded glare.

Napoleon smiles up at Cindy, and flirts, because that’s just what he does. After years of his 24/7 job training him to never lock a door that might be a lead or an escape route later, trying to charm his way into every possible heart has been a compulsive thing for a long time. He has no interest in taking the waitress home, but to not flirt with her would be to lock a door that didn’t need to be shut, and that just feels unnatural and, at its core, unsafe.

This is not the first time in the past two weeks that Napoleon has felt disapproval from Illya, not for flirting with a girl, but for flirting with her with no further intentions. He feels pressure radiating from Illya’s glare to be more interested in girls than he has the energy to be right now.

Cindy leaves to get the check. Just as Napoleon thought, Illya looks irritated with Napoleon for letting her leave the table at all. It’s frustrating. He feels set up for failure, trapped.

Not really sure of what it will do, but needing to do something to make a change happen, Napoleon lowers his hand and settles it on top of Illya’s where it rests on the table. Illya startles slightly, but doesn’t make any quick movements. He frowns at Napoleon, who only lets the weight of his palm sink further into the bones of Illya’s hand, the joints of his knuckles. It feels nice, and Napoleon smiles.

Illya lifts his eyebrow in a sort of dare as Cindy approaches their table. Napoleon does not withdraw his hand, and speaks to the waitress in the same tone of voice he has been, knowing she wouldn’t make anything of the situation if he acted like it was nothing unusual. She hardly seems to register their joined hands, busy as she is smiling for tips and balancing an overfilled tray destined for other tables.

Once she has fluttered away, Illya pulls his hand out from under Napoleon’s. “You shouldn’t make a game of what is life and death for others,” he says darkly, and Napoleon can tell he spent some time selecting his words and letting them brew. Napoleon wishes he knew what Illya _meant_ by that, but he just doesn’t. Holding hands with a man, parachuting out of a plane amidst gunfire— _life and death_ is Napoleon’s job, his _life_ , and probably his death, too, so he doesn’t understand what Illya’s getting at, suggesting that he isn’t accustomed to living on the edge of danger.

Napoleon makes a decision then. This confusion has gone on long enough. In his most serious-business voice, he says, “I need you to drive me somewhere.”

Illya visibly sobers, moving efficiently to stack his plates and pull out his wallet. “Didn’t Waverly say that we’re done here, until we fly back in the morning?”

“Yes, but I’m not satisfied,” Napoleon says, even though he has resolutely refused to give a single thought to their mission since receiving the news that the last three days had been wasted.

Illya really has mastered the art of looking simultaneously skeptical and obedient.

Napoleon smiles, and hands Illya the keys to the rental car.

Eighty silent miles of freeway later, Illya is looking flushed, relaxed, and happier than Napoleon has seen him in weeks. Napoleon watches him with his elbows tucked, his chin resting on the palm of his hand. “What would you have done?” he asks over the roar of the engine.

Illya spares him half a glance. “What would I have done when?”

“If you never moved to the land of fast cars and straight, open highways. I hate to think of you never getting to experience an Interstate.”

Illya narrows his eyes at the road, considering. “You mean the land of enforced speed limits,” he murmurs without bite. Then he seems to find what he has been squinting for, grasping Napoleon’s schemes in the dark beyond the headlights. His jaw clenches, and he turns to Napoleon for a full second. “Please tell me you don’t have me driving to the middle of nowhere just because you think I enjoy it.”

Napoleon slides his palm a little further up his chin, straightening out his smile. “If you think this is the middle of nowhere, I really need to take you to Nebraska.”

Illya fails to suppress the corner of his mouth from lifting, and Napoleon feels that warm, relieved sensation that Illya’s proximity brings out in him.

“This is ridiculous,” Illya scorns, still smiling. He slows the car down, and hits the turn signal, even though there’s no one on the empty road to signal to. “I’m not a dog that needs to be taken out for a walk.”

Napoleon sighs, glad that he got at least one hour’s worth of peaceful driving by Illya’s side before he blew it. He feels calmer than he has in so long.

“Pull over here,” Napoleon urges, even though Illya is already slowing to a crawl. He wants Illya to stop, rather than simply use the shoulder to perform a u-turn. Driving slowly enough now that he can take his eyes off the road, Illya looks over at Napoleon skeptically. Napoleon continues looking as innocent as possible until the car brakes to a halt in the gravel beside the road.

Napoleon folds his hands together in his lap as Illya shuts off the engine and lights. His blond hair looks silver in the moonlight, and Napoleon wants to touch it. He wants to touch the bridge of Illya’s nose, and the flat of his stomach, and the warmth of his inner thigh, and the translucent skin between his collarbones. “Illya,” he starts, hoping against hope that Illya won’t revert into his tense, impenetrable state as soon as he speaks, “We need to talk.”

Of course, Illya immediately tenses. His shoulders hunch up as his arms cross stubbornly in front of him and he turns away from Napoleon to stare directly out the windshield. He sighs dramatically, and Napoleon sighs too, resigned to this being difficult.

“Illya,” he says again before that sharp tongue has a chance to cut, “I am willing to _work_ on this. Why aren’t you?”

It’s so simple, it appears to stun them both. Illya goes still, and Napoleon thinks to himself, _I am willing to work on this_. 

He watches Illya sink into his seat a little, and inhales a breath of hope. “Usually,” Napoleon begins, “I like someone most when I first get to know them. I’m not used to liking someone more with every passing day,” he says, continuing in the vein of simple truths, hoping that overthinking and caution are the elements that have been repelling Illya.

Illya speaks clinically to the steering wheel. “And that overwhelms you and scares you. It is not my responsibility to make comfortable that which is uncomfortable for you by figuring out for you what it is you actually want.”

Napoleon doesn’t quite understand all of that, but he responds to what he does. “I _know_ what I want,” he says pleadingly, sliding one hand across the leather bench seat to brush his fingertips against the outer edge of Illya’s thigh.

After a hoarse, bitter laugh, Illya murmurs, “No, you don’t.” But he doesn’t pull away. Napoleon flexes his fingers once again, draws them up over the crest of Illya’s quadriceps. “You think you want this,” Illya continues.

“Mmhm,” Napoleon hums, inching his hand up, thinking he may end up getting closer to Illya than he hoped to tonight, thinking he might get what he wants.

“But what you really want is to explore this, at a pace slow enough that you don’t end up terrified speechless after each encounter, and you want to explore it only until you’ve figured out its mystery so that you can go back to business as usual.”

Napoleon picks up on something, then, and he can’t believe it took him so long to see it. He stills his hand and says solemnly, “I would never use you like that, Illya.”

Illya’s profile looks so childlike in the white moonlight, but when he turns to face Napoleon, his eyes look ancient as glaciers, indifferent as the sea, cold as cruelty itself. Napoleon meets that gaze and presses on. “Would you rather I go have sex with strange men until it’s not shocking anymore?” Illya’s thigh tenses under his palm, and Napoleon squeezes it reflexively, startled by his own hunger. “Would you rather I start a serious relationship with some other agent to get some practice in sustainable workplace romances? Do you want me to fall in love with someone else so that I know what I’m doing?” he says, not bothering to stop his tongue even though he hasn’t admitted so much even to himself.

Illya is utterly non-responsive, aside from a flicker of heat in the blacks of his pupils, sparked either by amusement or by something else. Napoleon shifts in his seat, pulling one knee up onto the bench with him so that he can turn his shoulders and hips toward Illya. “I would do those things, because, like I said, I’m willing to work on this, whatever that means,” he says, even though he really doesn’t want to do any of those things. He just wants to have Illya close, wants Illya to stay patiently nearby when Napoleon has to catch his breath.

Through a grinding voice that barely makes it through his teeth, Illya asks, “You really believe yourself, don’t you?”

Somehow the words sound more awed than accusatory. Napoleon keeps searching those eyes, and finds no accusation. “I always do,” he finally responds with total sincerity.

Illya smiles then, an abrupt crack in the ice, and Illya lowers his eyes as though to shield the vulnerable fissure. Helpless, aimless, Napoleon leans in, drawn by the opening and the longing to fit himself inside it.

When Napoleon is just a breath away from Illya’s forehead, Illya snaps to life. He reaches up to hold Napoleon by the jaw, keeping him still, and he scrutinizes Napoleon’s face, watches closely as he speaks. “If I saw you fucking another man,” Illya says, his voice unapologetic but something self-deprecating resting in the shadows of his face. “You would see what I look like in a rage,” he finishes haltingly, as though uncertain of the least shameful way to word that.

Shameful or not, it drags a hot knife down Napoleon’s gut, and he feels his face flush under Illya’s damp exhalations. He knows this is more of an admission of weakness for Illya than something he said for Napoleon’s benefit, but it’s arousing nonetheless.

Managing to keep a little lightness in his voice, Napoleon says on a smile, “Then take me for yourself.” His teeth feel exposed in the air. His gaze flickers between Illya’s shining eyes, and he wants so badly to be flooded by the heat that’s pooled there.

He misses just a beat, maybe he blinks, and suddenly Illya’s mouth is on his, biting and licking before their lips even kiss. It’s just like the first time, and Napoleon swells on a wave of all the emotions rendered by this kiss two weeks ago. He’s breathless, surging forward into the wet smother of their joined mouths, even as Illya’s strong grip on his jaw makes it so hard to inhale.

“You want this,” Illya breaks off to say raggedly, not quite a question and not quite a statement. He moves over Napoleon, looming somehow. Napoleon is too busy catching his breath, watching every glint of Illya’s teeth. He doesn’t track his movements, not until the thumb on his chin slides acutely down the side of his neck, stroking, up and down, shockingly soft. Illya is kneeling over him, knees on either side of his lap on the bench seat, crouched awkwardly in the cramped space of the rental car. He blocks out the moonlight. He’s Napoleon’s whole world. It’s oppressive. Napoleon wants it.

He slouches down into his seat to give Illya’s head more room up there, but as Illya sinks down into the provided space, their crotches join in a way Napoleon wasn’t quite expecting. Illya, unfazed, lowers his head to kiss wetly across Napoleon’s cheek, jaw, ear.

Over Illya’s shoulder, Napoleon watches his own shaking hands as though they belong to some other, charmed person. They slide up the smooth, strong expanse of Illya’s back to cradle his scapulae, reaching upward like half of a hug, like a girl’s half of a hug. Napoleon bites his lip, Illya’s teeth just behind his ear, the thought so jarring and yet nothing at all like a perfect, splash-less dive into cold water—his hands on Illya’s back look like a girl’s hands.

“Enough about me,” says some corner of Napoleon’s brain still somehow poised to speak. His hands flex to clutch and bear down on Illya’s shoulders, drawing their bodies closer together. Illya’s heat pressing against his groin shatters his breath. “What do _you_ want?”

“I want _you_ , Napoleon, want every little part of you.” The words tumble out of Illya with no hesitation, kissed into his neck and spilling out as easy as laughter. It makes Napoleon’s blood rush hotter, but he tries to turn his head to get a read on Illya’s face. Illya is rarely so frank, and never so _easily_ frank, and Napoleon thinks that the admission must have hurt, or that something else is going on.

But Illya keeps going, eyes closed, face flushed, lips hungry and sucking between words, “I want to make out with you in the backseat of a parked car.” His teeth pull at the skin stretching below Napoleon’s collar. “I want to give you,” he murmurs the flesh he has caught between his teeth, “a hickey.” Napoleon laughs in disbelief, but the sound ends quickly when he gasps at the suction of Illya’s mouth.

Still in shock at seeing this side of Illya for the first time—even though it tugs at his memory, the feeling of Illya’s hands spread wide across his hips, so that he can almost feel them pinning him down still—Napoleon smiles to the car’s roof and breathes in air that smells like Illya and warmth and tastes like pure oxygen. “Are you always such a teenager in bed?” He tries to laugh a little bit, but pulls down on Illya’s shoulders at the same time so he doesn’t send the wrong message.

There’s a wet sound when Illya releases his bite and reminds him simply, “We’re not in bed,” before surging up to take Napoleon’s mouth again. Napoleon would roll his eyes, but they’re shut too tight against any sensation but the hot slide of Illya’s tongue against his own. “If we were,” Illya pulls away to growl, before sucking Napoleon’s lip into his mouth savagely, and releasing it again. “I would want to fuck you until you come all over your satin sheets.”

Napoleon freezes up at that, pulled in a million different directions until his skin is taut as a drum. Illya’s words make his cock ache hard, pressing for contact that isn’t there, where Illya’s hovering a few inches above him now. They also make his head spin—how? what? _him_?—and picturing the mechanics of what it would mean—him coming all over his sheets— _face down, Illya behind him_ —slows him down to glacier speed. He’s not completely ignorant of how such things work, but he has never had reason to imagine being desired in that way by someone who wanted more than to conquer him. 

He doesn’t know what it means to say _yes_ and he doesn’t know what it means to say _no_ , but Illya is sitting there, testing him, waiting for a response, and Napoleon has to give him one. He’s drawn him out too far to let him slither away into his resentful corner again. “Oh, is that all?” Napoleon forces out on a sigh that was never really intended to sound all that nonchalant in the first place.

Whatever that playful, pushing expression on Illya’s face had been, it’s replaced totally and immediately by something much more simple, as his gaze flickers hotly down to lock on Napoleon’s mouth. His eyes remain fixed there even after Napoleon stops speaking. Napoleon wonders if his words have been heard, and part of him hopes—if only for the spike of lust the idea sets deep in his chest—that Illya was too distracted to listen at all.

“I want your mouth,” Illya states, voice as even and low as his hooded eyes. Then, he hitches his breath in, sharp and quick, and holds it, the way he always does when he realizes that some piece of information he has is now relevant to share. He moves efficiently to grab Napoleon by the wrist, dragging him free of their embrace until Napoleon’s fingers are at Illya’s lips.

“I know now, that your lips are softer than they look.” Every syllable rubs plushly against Napoleon’s fingertips. He shivers. Illya exhales, hot air warming all the way down to Napoleon’s palm. “I know how they _kiss_ ,” Illya continues, before wrapping his lips lightly just around the pads of Napoleon’s two longest fingers. Napoleon’s mind whites out at the gentle suck, and he feels the vibration of Illya’s voice, but doesn’t hear what he says next. They’ve been here before: Illya’s lips around his fingers. But that was before Illya made it clear that Napoleon’s mouth could do the same things his does. 

He’s stuck on an incoherent loop of Illya’s mouth, _his_ mouth, his fingers, his cock, _Illya’s_ cock, a _girl’s hands_ , and Illya sucking his fingers down to pet the back of his tongue the way he wants _Napoleon_ to suck down _his_ —

He only realizes how harshly he is chewing on his own lip when Illya softly bites down around his knuckles, eyes fixed on Napoleon’s mouth. That wet tongue drags back up slicking up in between his two fingers, and Napoleon feels a little alarmed by how little it might take to make him come right now. For god’s sake, he’s practically an old man; he shouldn’t be close to losing it in his pants like he’s a teenager discovering sex for the first time.

Illya’s teeth close down on him again, gentle but firm enough to hold his hand suspended, no longer supported by Illya’s grip on his wrist. There’s the sound of a belt clanking apart. Napoleon looks down, even as Illya’s tongue lathes distractingly across his fingers and cool saliva starts to pool in the v between them. His breath hitches at the sight of Illya efficiently shoving down his own pants and briefs down his thighs as far as they can go, stretched across Napoleon’s lap.

Napoleon finds himself looking eagerly for Illya’s cock, almost desperate for a glimpse, peeking between the folds of Illya’s too-long shirt like trying to look up his ninth grade teacher’s skirt when she climbed the stool to write at the top of the chalkboard. Only this is so much dirty-raw-hotter, flesh that he’s held in his hand hiding just _there_ , within reach, instead of layers and layers of fluffy, mystifying undergarments.

He’s shaken out of it by a choked sound when his fingers curl hard into the soft give of the floor beneath Illya’s tongue. His heartbeat slams up into his throat when he sees Illya close his eyes, furrow his brow, and _suck_ , harder, like he sucked Napoleon’s cock, like sucking feels _good_. Napoleon’s mouth waters in envy. His free hand shakes on its way to the hem of Illya’s shirt.

But Illya seems to suddenly remember that he was in the middle of something. He unceremoniously shoves his shirt up, and cups the bulk of his cock and testicles in his other hand, up and away. It’s dark in here, but moonlit enough to see it’s obvious Illya isn’t _quite_ as embarrassingly hard as Napoleon is. That knowledge does something to Napoleon, makes him want to touch even _more_.

So he finally sets his free hand down, atop where Illya’s tucking himself against his stomach. He twists his wrist to try to slot his fingers between Illya’s. Illya grunts and tightens his grip so the spaces between his fingers disappear.

Napoleon grunts in frustration. “For god’s sake, lllya, I’m not some blushing virgin, I’ve touched it before.” And he _has_ , god damn it, he has touched Illya’s velvet-soft hardness before, and he wants to _again_ , it’s not _fair_ that Illya’s keeping himself hidden away no matter what angle Napoleon takes, like he thinks Napoleon doesn’t know what he’s doing, like Napoleon hasn’t made him _come_ before.

In one motion, Illya swats away Napoleon’s left hand and grabs his right wrist to pull his fingers out of his mouth with a savagely wet sound.

Illya breathes like he’s been choking, resting his forehead on Napoleon’s and exhaling hotly onto Napoleon’s mouth. His breaths taste like spit, if that’s even possible. His grip tightens around Napoleon’s wrist.

“This is where I want to touch you,” Illya murmurs out, so bitter it’s almost sweet, or so sweet it’s almost bitter. He brings Napoleon’s wet hand down to the spread of his thighs, past the protective cup of Illya’s other hand. All Napoleon can think, stupidly, is _If you’d just uncover yourself, I’d be touching you already and you wouldn’t have to show me._

But he’s grateful that the words never made it to his voice, because Illya’s pushing Napoleon’s wet fingers up _behind_ it all. His fingertips touch a dry pucker of skin that clenches, then flutters at the pressure.

The garbled, sobbing sound Napoleon makes is probably better than if he’d said aloud what he’d been thinking, because really, he _did_ need Illya to show him.

“Right here,” Illya says in his darkest whisper. Napoleon shuts his eyes, and struggles to swallow his own breath. He cock flexes in his pants, against something wet, his _own_ wet. Illya takes one of Napoleon’s fingers by the knuckle and pushes the tip inside, and Napoleon can’t believe the heat, the _heat_ of it.

“You’d feel so tight, Napoleon,” Illya gasps, before taking a short, sucking kiss from Napoleon’s gaping mouth.

It _hurts_. Something, the heat, the squeeze, the unforgiving trap of his pants, the wanting, the not knowing, or the pins and needles of Illya’s breaths against his temple. It hurts, but Napoleon wants more.

“Your ass would be so tight,” Illya reiterates, and this time Napoleon shoves his finger in deeper to the dry, hard clench of Illya’s body on his own. Illya doesn’t remove his guiding hand. “So soft, and hot.” Illya holds his hand in place and grinds down in shallow circles. Napoleon feels dizzy from the motion, from the play of Illya’s lips at his hairline as he murmurs out more world-tilting words.

“I think about your ass, Napoleon. I think about getting you wet, so I can open you up, and fuck up inside you, like this, fit my whole cock inside you.”

Napoleon can’t breathe. He feels like he’s crying, but the stinging in his eyes feels more like sweat than tears, and regardless, Illya is pushing his finger deeper, all the way to the base knuckle, even though it’s dry and catches and that can’t feel good, does it feel good?

“Illya,” he thinks he manages to croak out.

“Does that scare you?” Illya asks, in his same steady trickle of molasses-dark whispers. Napoleon tries to swallow, tries to shake his head _no_ even though of course it scares him, it scares him how completely aroused he is with his finger, just his _finger_ , knuckle-deep inside another man.

Illya must release his hand at some point, because he’s suddenly pulling Napoleon by the hair, craning his neck against the bench seat until he opens his eyes into Illya’s glistening stare.

Napoleon’s hand moves of its own volition, rubbing up deep inside that hot clench and making himself shudder, making Illya let out the shortest moan through his nose.

He sees Illya’s teeth grinding before he continues. “Can you imagine how tight you’d be, Napoleon?” There’s something warmer in his voice now, as the shadow of his eyelashes flickers up and down, between Napoleon’s eyes and his lips. “I know you’d be so tight, even tighter than what you’re feeling right now.” And hell if that doesn’t make Napoleon whine and squirm under Illya’s weight. Illya rocks down, and Napoleon fights to keep his hand steady enough—feels the soft curve of Illya’s cheek flatten in his palm, and brushes his thumb between coarse hairs until he gets to the crepe-papery skin that doesn’t fit in Illya’s hand.

Illya’s breath hitches higher to say, “The way I see it, you’ve maybe had one girl, maybe two, who wanted to touch you here. And you aim to please, so you let them try, but laughed it off after one finger, because _surely_ it couldn’t feel that good to them.”

Napoleon realizes he’s rubbing circles against the grainy-yet-smooth smooth flesh inside of Illya, feeling thready veins or nerves or god knows what delicate things under his fingertips, everything so hot and close and breakable. He’s mindless, didn’t decide to start moving his fingers, just responded to some response of Illya’s. Illya, who seems to like it. Who is looking down at him like he’s waiting for confirmation. Napoleon licks his lips, lost. He knows somewhere in the back of his mind that what Illya is saying is frighteningly accurate, but he can’t recall any details, can’t bring to mind a single person besides the one straddling his lap and driving him crazy while he whispers between kisses Napoleon barely manages to return.

“So you’ve never been stretched more than this, one finger,” Illya whispers huskily. There’s a slight grunt in his breath as he releases the hand he’s been trapping his cock with. Napoleon’s free hand takes its place without him thinking about it. He bites into Illya’s lip and wraps his hand around the base of his cock, thumb reaching to rub at the head, and it’s so heavy, so _thick_ , could it really fit—

Illya has reached behind himself to put Napoleon’s middle finger up alongside the other. It’s too dry, it has to be too dry, Napoleon can barely get the tip in, and there’s a pained sort of fluttering threatening to cut his circulation off.

“And you’ve never even— never fucked anyone like this before, so you’ve never even _seen_ how good it can feel.” Illya’s words come out in a string of hisses now, his tone almost punishing. This whole time, it’s as if he’s hoping to punish Napoleon, push too hard, scare him, make him wish he’d never asked. But he _has_ to see what he’s _doing_ to Napoleon. He has to know by now that this is a reward, not punishment, has to stop waiting for Napoleon to push him off, has to calm down. Doesn’t he? Or maybe he’s punishing them both?

Blazing under the heat of Illya’s stubble-rough cheek pressed against his own, and the ruthless stream of gutting words, ( _You’ll be so overwhelmed, taken by surprise, and it’ll all be for me, I’ll show you…_ ) Napoleon has to fight to stay coherent.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” he finally sputters out through the painful arch in his throat. His voice sounds like he’s drowning. He moves the hand he has around Illya’s cock, trying to remember how he would touch himself while continuing to block out the fact that his own cock is still painfully trapped, untouched, in his trousers.

Illya slots their lips together again and says, “Only if you don’t know what you’re doing,” which is equal parts teasing and admonishing, which means that Napoleon is equal parts aroused that Illya seems to find some value in his inexperience, and sick-feeling at the admission that _he is hurting Illya_.

“But _I_ know what I’m doing.”

And with that, Illya finally _finally_ comes to palm over Napoleon’s straining erection. Illya goes still, for a moment, while Napoleon tries not to thrust up so hard as to dislodge his partner. He pulls back until his blond hairs brush against the roof of the car, and casts Napoleon a searching look. Searching, really, like he’s surprised by how hard Napoleon’s cock is under his hand, like he thinks Napoleon is _lying_ to him. _Really_.

Napoleon has seen Illya bluff more times than he can count. He knows his bluffing face. And this is it, right here, as Illya bows his head to focus on unfastening Napoleon’s pants as though the moment of surprise never happened at all.

Napoleon takes advantage of the moment of distraction to slip his fingers out and withdraw his hand from the tangle between their bodies. No matter how hell-bent Illya seems on it, Napoleon isn’t interested in _hurting_ him.

Illya isn’t so far retreated into his mind that he doesn’t notice; he sends Napoleon a deadly glare when his fingers pull out, but makes no comment as he takes advantage of the newly created space to pull Napoleon’s cock out over the waistband of his boxers and swipe his thumb over the wet slit.

“You’re not exactly ah, scaring me away,” Napoleon gasps out in between hitched breaths. It’s understatement, and Illya is meant to hear his real meaning, which is that _he_ , for one, has no bluffs to call.

“No,” Illya murmurs, sounding a little more lost and breathless now as he strokes Napoleon’s cock firm and sure. Napoleon picks up the pace with his own hand on Illya, because he keeps almost forgetting that it’s there, that that’s _his hand_ , with that unbelievably smooth skin so foreign in his palm. “No, it seems you rather _like_ sticking your fingers in places they don’t belong.”

“I’d let you, you know,” Napoleon blurts out before he even knows it’s true. Illya bucks into his touch, and squeezes too hard at the base of Napoleon’s cock.

Illya lets out a sound Napoleon has never heard from him before, a high, whining groan that gets cut off before it even starts, and then he’s smacking Napoleon’s hand away easily and replacing it with his own. One hand on Napoleon, one hand on himself, and his forehead supporting his weight at the juncture of Napoleon’s neck and shoulder. Napoleon stares down the sharp curl of his hunched shoulders and back, out at the moonlit grass outside, at anything to keep himself from losing himself and the opportunity to hear Illya make that sound again. He breathes in the smell of sweat from the crown of Illya’s head, and says, “I’d let you be my first.”

He says it mildly as he can, and lets his hands land lightly onto the outside of Illya’s thighs. It’s in sharp contrast to the furious stripping of Illya’s right hand, the one he has on himself. There’s an exhale that might be a laugh, and his left hand squeezes and pulls in fits and starts.

Napoleon tilts his head, burying his nose in strands of Illya’s hair, and whispers. “I’d let you put your cock in me.”

The sound Illya makes then is not laughter, and it’s not choked off like the one before. It sounds wet and muddy like something that wasn’t buried properly and came up at first rain. Napoleon is crazy with it.

“I’d let you fuck me.”

Napoleon feels strung tight, drawn and quartered with waiting for the next sound erupt against the unexpectedly sensitive skin of his neck. But there’s no sound, and nothing, nothing in the world, registers until the slide of Illya’s grip on his cock feels suddenly slicker, and he feels something thick and wet hit the underside, and that’s Illya, coming all over his cock, painting him with it.

The revelation strikes him with the gravity of grief, as untethering as loss, and he knows he’s coming now, too, but all his only concrete sensation is the imagined vision of Illya holding him in place and furiously pumping his cock out onto him and smearing it all over, over and over again. The vision fills his mind like a smoke, like something he could taste.

He doesn’t know how long the rustling has been going on before he comes back to reality. But it’s the first sound he hears, and then he sees that Illya is sprawled out in the driver’s seat beside him, fastening up his pants and belt with uncharacteristically sluggish movements. Maybe it’s just Napoleon’s brain that’s sluggish. He blinks a few times.

“Can’t run away from me this time,” Napoleon remarks. It comes out so easy, like it was brewing in his own subconscious, like he is taking some comfort in the thought that he doesn’t have the option to run, himself. His head lolls on the back of the bench back and forth until he finds enough strength to straighten his neck.

Illya laughs, but he’s looking down, and Napoleon can’t tell whether he’s actually amused or not. Napoleon looks down too, at the bottom half of Illya’s shirt that he’s fiddling with, which is dark and translucent in patches, which he clearly used to clean them both up.

The memory stings, suddenly sharp in the messy haze of the dark, humid car. The pleasure is starting to fade, and he feels overwhelmed. Illya was _trying_ to overwhelm him. Aggressively.

Napoleon tucks himself away and buttons up, using hands that feel about as dextrous as paws. Illya tucks his wet, stained shirt into his pants like it’s nothing, and says, “Your attempts to speak in a way to induce a sexual reaction are really revolting.”

Napoleon thinks back across the last several minutes, and looks at Illya until he spots a hint of warm color on that cold-blooded face. Maybe Napoleon is overwhelmed, but he’s still standing. “Yes, I see the sweet talking doesn’t work on you at all.”

The corner of Illya’s mouth tucks up into his cheek. He turns the key until the car sputters to a start. “I didn’t say _that_.”

Illya turns his head to look over his left shoulder, checking for traffic even though not a single car has passed by since they parked. Before he can let his foot off the brake pedal, Napoleon leans over into his space so that when Illya turns back around, they’re nose to nose.

“Kiss me, lover boy,” Napoleon coos.

A look of revulsion crosses Illya’s face, sure, but it’s laced with amusement, fondness, and a hot streak of want that flashes silver in his eyes. He looks down to Napoleon’s lips, which keep resolutely, amazingly still.

“I don’t know why I like you,” Illya shudders out, giddy like a fever breaking, and Napoleon thinks it’s probably something that he’s needed to say for a long time. He lets it wash over him. Lets it land on him, hot and wet.

Illya kisses him, and it feels like victory, even though Napoleon knows the battle’s only just begun and he has no strategy. Illya’s kisses just taste like victory, and passion, and safety, and danger, and everything good. He sinks into it a bit, licking and sucking gently, until he starts to detect a certain flavor.

 _He licked their come off his hand_ , Napoleon thinks.

He stops thinking at that point. Probably stops moving, too, struck dumb by the revelation. Next thing he knows, Illya is shoving him back into his own half of the bench, chuckling low and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

Napoleon doesn’t really know what to say. Illya seems determined to drive them back to town, and so they drive. Napoleon keeps licking around his own mouth, chasing that flavor. _You wouldn’t like the taste,_ he remembers Illya saying, before. He wonders how much has changed. He wonders if Illya is driving them back to the hotel because there’s a _bed_ there, or if it’s because they have to fly back to their regular work day in just a couple of hours, and he wants to be on time.

“Don’t make me wait another two weeks,” Napoleon says, a jagged island in the serene ocean of their silence.

The speedometer doesn’t waver, but he sees Illya’s jaw clench. “I won’t,” he says, and it sounds dark as a threat and sure as a promise, and at least one of those things gives Napoleon goosebumps. The good kind of goosebumps.

Illya flicks on the FM radio. Napoleon leans his elbow against the window and closes his eyes. He smells something different, something warmer even than the close, sweaty humidity of the car. He leans into it, follows it to his own hand that he’s leaning on.

His fingers. The ones that touched _inside_ of Illya. Napoleon’s mouth waters, and something in his chest crumples like heartache because he expected such a thing to smell _bad_ and dirty and wrong, but this—this just smells like _sex_.

He doesn’t know what that says about him. It kind of terrifies him. But he doesn’t let it show. He tucks his loose fist under his cheekbone and keeps it there for the rest of the drive, breathing evenly, in and out.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Thanks again!


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